$$How much is a server worth? $$

Let's pay servers at Waffle House $45 per hour. Because, I've seen some of them do a hell of a lot better job than some "trendy" places.

I have no doubt there are some nurses that don't have employer-contributed health insurance - but surely not anything approaching 90% of nurses, which I figure is about the percentage of restaurant workers that don't.

It's larger than you might think...a high percentage of nursing jobs are part-time = no benefits. Long term care nursing....which is mostly LPNs and not RNs ....(I'd guess 50-60%) a high percentage have no benefits. Obviously it's higher than what the restaurant industry offers, my point is that it's a similar service position in many ways and I'm sure the numbers would shock you.

I may have low balled that estimate, the high end should probably op out around $75 per hour.

The ability to under estimate the amount of skill needed to execute the "serving" position amazes me.

The ability to multitask is obviously very undervalued.

In what other profession do the needs and wants of up to 30 individuals have to be managed by one person in a environment designed to place the product in the customers hands immediately.

Most of you multitask, but rarely do you have to provide an immediate response for all of your customers.

For instance, when i'm on the floor on a busy night this is what is going through my head on one pass to the counter/kitchen (roughly 3 to 5 minute time frame)

-
drinks for table 8, 3 pepsi, 2 sweet tea, 1 water w/lemon, 1 bells, 1 NABC
stop put in apps for table 2 , bread bites, beer cheese, marinara, and garlic butter
grab their plates and silverware
kitchen just called my name, its either the apps for 15 or the pizzas for 10, hope someone can run it, i still need the teas for 8
better run the card for 10
grab the carry out for spellman
and print the check for the guy at the bar

now to run those drinks to 8
and greet the new two top walking in the door

--
and this is simple service, throw in a few new specials every night, full wine/bar service, a cantankerous guest on his cell phone slowing a whole order down, and/or a malfunctioning drink machine/coffee maker/etc.....and its not quite as easy as "anyone can do it"

you certainly don't have to be "college educated" to wait tables, but many of us are, and it certainly is helpful when explaining complicated menu items, communicating with strangers, etc..... and i'll stand up for those who have garnered their degrees through years of experience "serving"

my college loans may have been better spent in apprenticing at the NABC considering my current line of work

__
a great server that anticipates your needs and wants should easily earn over $20 an hour in any setting

Shawn, I completely agree with you. My argument is that the general public does not see it that way.

You should check out Mike Rose's book "The Mind at Work." It's gets at exactly what you are talking about -- the cognitive skills needed in "service" work, why we undervalue it, and why such an undervaluing is misplaced. The first chapter is entitled "The Working Life of a Waitress."

I may have low balled that estimate, the high end should probably op out around $75 per hour.

a great server that anticipates your needs and wants should easily earn over $20 an hour in any setting

150'000 a year for a "high end" server ?...With all due respect Shawn, I'm thinking you might want to put the ol' hash pipe down and just back away.

<sigh> Once again I had the option of staying out of this one...and <huge sigh> once again I just didn't have the ability. Someone slap me.

I may have low balled that estimate, the high end should probably op out around $75 per hour.

a great server that anticipates your needs and wants should easily earn over $20 an hour in any setting

150'000 a year for a "high end" server ?...With all due respect Shawn, I'm thinking you might want to put the ol' hash pipe down and just back away.

<sigh> Once again I had the option of staying out of this one...and <huge sigh> once again I just didn't have the ability. Someone slap me.

WHAP ..... WHAP ..... WHAP .... Is that enough?

<sigh> Once again I had the option of staying out of this one...and <huge sigh> once again I just didn't have the ability. Someone slap me.

Only if you agree to slap me when I open my mouth!

Regardless, I'm with you. Imagine the price point that would be required to pay servers $75 dollars an hour. Charlie Trotter may be able to pull off giving six figures to a single member of the wait staff, but this would be absolutely impossible at any restaurant without a cult following.

I think Mark hit a realistic top number (with exceptions for Charlie Trotter et. al.) with the $35-40 range. I'm not sure most restaurants could afford more, even if they increased the menu prices. That's still over $80k a year with a 40 hour work week, and I'm sure many servers work much more than 40 hours a week. As Steve pointed out, $75 an hour would work out to over $150k, and without any disrespect for the service industry, that's a absurd. $150k would put that single person in the top 5% of households, not to mention what it would be if two such servers married. That's somewhere between 2 and 3 times what the average person with Ph.D makes. Once again, I'm not knocking servers, but I seriously doubt any restauranteur could afford that. (Not even Charlie Trotter!)

I may have low balled that estimate, the high end should probably op out around $75 per hour.

a great server that anticipates your needs and wants should easily earn over $20 an hour in any setting

150'000 a year for a "high end" server ?...With all due respect Shawn, I'm thinking you might want to put the ol' hash pipe down and just back away.

<sigh> Once again I had the option of staying out of this one...and <huge sigh> once again I just didn't have the ability. Someone slap me.

WHAP ..... WHAP ..... WHAP Is that enough?

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr....whoa !....Thanks Steve, I needed that

And now for a cold dose of reality for everyone on both sides of the issue:

Most cooks in this city (not executive chefs or sous chefs, but line and pantry cooks and pastry chefs) make a maximum of $10-12 an hour, no benefits, no tips. Many work for $8 or $9. They come in before the servers and leave after them.

Marsha -

Just curious here - my daughter has worked at a couple of different restaurants as a hostess, and she never got tipped out - and when she worked as a server, never tipped out the hostess. What is the common practice? The hostesses where she worked made more than minimum wage.

Ok....I'll open my mouth.

When it comes to our employment, we all make decisions. Please don't tell me that many don't have a choice to do anything else. They do. As humans, we make decisions every day that affect our lives. If we make poor decisions, we must learn to live with the consequences. If we make good ones, we live with the benefits.

Education is a choice. Lifestyle is a choice.

I've worked in the food industry on and off (mostly on) since I was 15. There have been many times people have said "I have to work at a restaurant since I've got xxx charge against me I can't pass a background check to work at yyy". Sorry. YOU did it, you live with it. Not to say people can't and don't change, but you can't blame society for YOUR choices. I know two servers right now that whine about not being able to get "better" (their words) jobs because of choices they've made since becoming "adults".

I also know quite a few servers that are still serving tables at the age of 30+ and even a few at 50+ because they like having a cash based income that is harder track by the IRS, allowing them alittle more freedom (in their eyes). Many of these do seem to have a few illegal habits that they fund out of that unclaimed cash. These are some of the same people you'll hear complaining about not making "enough" cash on a busy night because they already have the money planned out to spend.

Being a server is NOT an easy job. Certainly not every one is cut out to be one. It is job that requires you to be able to multitask well. You must have people skills. You must even be able to smile at your boss and say "yes, sir" when you really want to say "go stuff your self". It's a physically demanding job.


Having said that....NO server is worth $75 an hour. NONE. I wouldn't even say that a restaurant could employ servers at $30 an hour and be competitive. I DO believe servers should be paid minimum wage plus their tips. I tip well for good service. I tip minimum for poor unattentive service, but I never "stiff" the server. I had one last night at Texas Roadhouse that was not good at all, and has never been when we've had her, but I still tipped 15%. I sat with a glass EMPTY from the time our food was brought out (by someone else) unitl I flagged a manager down 15 minutes later when our server never even came to check our food. Are you telling me a person like this deserves $35 an hour? Hell no!

I also have a REALLY big problem with the idea that as a college educated teacher, you'd prefer servers made more than me.

I worked as a food server/cocktail witress/bartender for many years and was married to a restaurant manager. I am familiar with the biz and managed a household on biz money. Dispite the fact the fact that it's a very hard profession and one that not everyone can or would do, $75 hr for a food server is rediculous. No one has student loans to pay off for learning how to be a food server like one might for nursing or landscaping or a meriad of other professions. And as far as having to hold your tongue and not being able to say what you really want to say to either the customer/client/your boss or whatever , hell that's true of ANY job. And what about labourers that work out in the elements, in the extreme heat or cold? Or garbage tippers that work the wee hours of the morning in very nasty stinking conditions? What about people that do jobs that endanger their lives or put their health at risk? What about the professions where the responsibility level is enormous and other peoples lives are at risk?

Again, restaurant work is not easy but in fact there are few jobs out therethat ARE easy.

So... what pay scale? How about $15-20 an hour + a percentage of sales?

Education is a choice. Lifestyle is a choice.

[...]

I also have a REALLY big problem with the idea that as a college educated teacher, you'd prefer servers made more than me.

Education is a choice, but the evidence is out there to show that it is not an equally-obtainable choice across all demographics. Alongside the individual responsibility your post offers, I'd add a healthy dose of social construction and social restriction. There are many people with the deck stacked solidly against them. The cost of higher education, for all except the richest of the rich, is a "stacked against" element facing the majority of people.

The "us versus them" fight that needs to be happening is not between server and teacher, but between the majority of us versus "the richest of the rich." In my world, the pay increase for servers would not be at the expense of teachers. Why can't we envision a world where both are adequately compensated for the work they do (even if the compensation is not the same)? It's amazing how those with power keep us in our place by creating not-important political debates that fragment "workers" as a political bloc. We don't need to be taking from the teacher to pay the server. We need to be taking from the sleazy, corporate dirtbags. Alas, I'll now take my socialist propaganda on down the road....

ok, i have a few points to cover

1st, nurses do not have to meet the immediate demands of ALL of their patients, for the most part they deal with one patient at a time - not 30 (and more often than not, the total time of the process is slower - they don't have to get their 30 patients in their beds and serviced and out the door in an hour or so) nor do they have to deal with 8 patients in one room who have to get all their meds at the exact same time)

2nd, i'm not demeaning the professions of others (teachers, nurses, police, fire, etc should all make more money) -
Trisha there are bad servers everywhere and i'd expect your waitress the other night should hit the low end around minimum wage to $10 and hour, because she obviously wasn't doing her job well
I've had more than one college educated teacher that performed poorly at their jobs as well, but i wasn't given the option to determine their rate of pay.
Additionally, i make more money serving than if i was using my MA to teach.

now, Steve P. - the hash pipe comment was uncalled for and i expect an apology

and i'll stick with my high end of $75 an hour

Since this is more or less make-believe and as far as I know no one here has the power to alter reality, take all my comments as off the cuff ramblings and I gave up the crack-pipe some time ago!

[150'000 a year for a "high end" server ?...With all due respect Shawn, I'm thinking you might want to put the ol' hash pipe down and just back away.

I think the use of a hash pipe is elitist. The vast majority of hash smokers cant afford to pack a pipe with hash. I would imagine most end up using the old pin and glass or the European model of rolling it up with a bit of old tobacco. Although if you were pulling in 75 bucks as hour....